


Take an umbrella with you

by hirondelle



Category: Inazuma Eleven, Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: Drag Queens, Everyone Is Gay, Falling In Love, Gay Bar, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, TATSUYA KIYAMA is called HIROTO KIRA, because I began writing this fanfiction in 2014, endgame masahika, endgame tatsumido, ryuuji uses he/his pronouns but when he drags everyone uses she/her, so AreOri wasn't a thing, teacher/parent relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hirondelle/pseuds/hirondelle
Summary: After his mother has died in a car accident, Kariya Masaki goes back living with his dad. The main reason of his parents' divorce? Midorikawa Ryuuji is gay. TOO BAD Kariya has internalized homophobia.Here starts a long journey to discover himself and understand his dad.Meanwhile, Midorikawa works as a dancer and performer in a gay bar, and accidentally falls in love with Masaki's teacher, Kira Hiroto (Kiyama Tatsuya).... He doesn't have to know that, right?
Relationships: Kageyama Hikaru/Kariya Masaki, Kiyama Tatsuya | Kiyama Hiroto | Gran/Midorikawa Ryuuji | Reize, Midorikawa Ryuuji | Reize/Suzuno Fuusuke | Gazel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [ombrelli sotto la pioggia](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/659890) by hirondelle_. 



A few drops drummed lightly on the glass of the window. They broke on the glassy surface and descended leaving a trasparent trail that Kariya had learned to trace with his fingers, like a rite of passage. Western songs passed on the radio and the boy didn’t want to understand their meaning. His guardian was sitting by his side, tapping with his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the traffic to move. He kept the volume at the lowest, covered by the noises of the road.  
There was a tense silence separating the passenger seat from that of the driver, almost like a blade of a letter-cutter was separating their lives. Masaki had long realized that his father was in vain trying to drive away that tension with regular and distracted coughs, which in turn were muffled by the sound of horns.  
And they looked at each other, then, with the same distrust given to a stranger. They both knew very well there was no need to create such atmosphere, and that they had been father and son even before they bottled up in that bloody traffic because "Fuck", Ryuuji had blur, beating his palms in vain on the steering wheel, "These salt-spreaders are useless, look what a disaster... just a slab of ice to block everything."  
Kariya hadn’t reacted, even when the guardian had asked him that fateful question that generally accompanied those kinds of situations, at least in the movies. "What do you want to eat tonight?"  
Masaki would not have been able to say whether he was hungry or not, and to be honest he didn't care that much. He just wanted to lie down and wait for the morning, in silence and without thoughts, hoping to wake up from a bad dream. And he really tried to look at Ryuuji's pulled faces and smiles that wanted to be reassuring: he couldn't really look at his face, thinking about a life that had to be normal after a hit-and-run, the same one who had stolen his previous life, and now he could be in front of them, behind, next to their car.  
He already knew: asking for the past was perhaps too much.  
After a sigh of relief Ryuuji restarted the engine of his Smart, smiling in his direction and returning to their slow pace. "If that's the case, I think I'll opt for a good soup!" he cheerfully teased, clearly not getting an answer.  
Masaki closed his eyes and barely smiled, letting himself to be lulled by the insistent noise of the rain that had begun to melt the snow furiously.

Midorikawa's apartment was as cozy as imaginable, and yet he felt a strange sense of emptiness that confused him a little, leaving him stunned on the doorstep. "Don't you have a partner?"  
Ryuuji gave him a questioning but amused look, taking off his shoes and leaving Masaki's suitcase next to the door. "No, I don't have one. I got rid of him before you came, are you glad?"  
"Don't joke," the boy muttered, looking around. It was quite spacious to be an apartment near the center, but maybe it was because Ryuuji had it cleaned before they arrived. The kitchen and the living room formed a single room, three doors suggested the existence of a bathroom and probably two bedrooms. There was a little terrace accessible from the kitchen.  
"I thought you had one, and you adopted me to satisfy the mutual desire to have a child, things like that," Kariya coldly commented, staring at him. He hadn't moved by the door yet.  
"Uh, well, I don't think I would have been selfish enough to do something like that, not without your knowledge," the adult smiled candidly to him, while he was already in front of the stove. "Sit down Kariya, you're going to make me anxious."  
"I'm not very hungry," commented the younger man. Maybe he was tired, maybe he just didn't want to talk. "Can I know which my room is?"  
Ryuuji suddenly froze, abandoning the pot on the fire for a moment and looking at it with disarming intensity. Kariya stared back at him for moments that seemed interminable. Midorikawa was an undoubtedly handsome man, with those huge fawn eyes and long hair to form a feminine bun, the dark skin in complete contrast to the white blouse, too formal if he had to be honest. A dry physique and enviable legs, so much that he wondered how he had maintained such an appearance throughout that time, such as the photocopy of a known and faded photograph of ten years earlier.  
He hated him.  
He ignored the tension as his father smiled candidly at him, approaching the third door and opening it with an elegant gesture. Masaki followed him dragging the suitcase and quivering.  
He was astonished to find his room exactly as he expected. It actually looked exactly how he left it. He felt a completely unpleasant sensation at the height of his stomach, a lump in his throat that he just didn't want to get off. He left his suitcase at the entrance without opening the light and moved a few steps, in disbelief, looking around completely lost and incredulous. Ryuuji watched him, as he leaned against the jamb, as if he was reflecting. "When you and your mother left, I preferred not to touch anything. If you look in that trunk over there, there's still all the toys you left here."  
"It was you who sent us away!" he cried, shuddering at that point, his fists clenched and his breath broken.  
Midorikawa at that point gave him a strange smile, as if condescending. Masaki was almost afraid of his incomprehensible expression, for the simple fact that she had never seen one on him before. "Ah, yes, right... I kicked you out. How silly from me," his father commented coldly, with a strange glow in his eyes.  
An atrocious silence followed, quite different from the one that they exchanged on the car trip. Sad, perhaps, and melancholic. So full of feelings and unspoken things that, if it had been broken, it would have led to the storm.  
However, when Ryuuji spoke again, nothing happened. Which made him even more disappointed, considering the pleasant and sweet smile that had resurfaced on the man's lips instead of the previous one. "Whatever, feel free to reach me if you are hungry. Do you need any help to empty the suitcase?"  
Kariya stared at him. He felt utterly helpless there, in the middle of the room, with the man who was his father after all, but whose attitude felt completely alien to him. He suddenly realized that he didn't want to. He didn’t want a gay father, and maybe that's why he persisted in staying as far away from him as possible.  
"Uhm" That sound literally brought him back to reality, forcing him to look away. "I'll take it for a no. Good night!"  
A smile, a look and the door was closed. Then a cough. Embarrassment.  
"Welcome home."

Good night.  
That "Good night" stuck in his head for hours. It vaguely reminded him of something indefinite that he really couldn't grasp. When was it, precisely, the last time he heard his father wish him good night? The memory was lost, as always, in the immense spaces of his memory without him being able to recover its meaning. Yet he was sure that he had heard it before, a similar voice, a long time before, perhaps in another context or in another life. It did not give any sense of nostalgia to him, to tell the truth, just a unexpected curiosity. It was like his entire existence had waited until that moment for Ryuuji Midorikawato appear – as biological father, and also shopping assistant, waiter, bachelor – and to simply wish him good night.  
He dreamed of nothing but his mother's voice, which reassuringly overlapped with the new one, from a person who was nothing but a long-faded shadow… and now had reappeared in search of lost memories.


	2. two

An unnatural silence had fallen in the teacher's room, as the usual working hours had ended. Very few held back until that late hour, in winter especially, when the sun was falling down even before dinner.  
Among them, a young teacher in his thirties gave an annoyed look at his shirt stained of coffee, trying in every way to hide the stain under his elegant office jacket.  
"Still, the new one?" commented a colleague, laughing. Which didn't particularly reassure him. He had waited for her to leave before hiding in the teachers' bathroom trying to clean up nicely: if there was anything Hiroto Kira particularly hated, it was the sticky texture that the coffee used to take on his expensive shirts.   
He startled as soon as the door opened behind him, and, as he looked up he could see, reflected on the mirror’s surface, the frowning and cynical expression of his adoptive brother. "Is that guy real?"  
Kira veneerly snorted, passing soap on the once immaculate cloth. Better wet than sticking, although the season was not the most suitable. He almost didn't hear Fuusuke beside him and barely looked in the mirror, as the other vainly fixed his hair behind the hears, as they were now longer on his shoulders. "You should deal with those brats, the fact that you find yourself in this state every night it's inadmissible."  
Hiroto sadly sighed, wondering which measures he could take. Maybe he should have brought some spare shirts to work to begin with, even if it sounded downright ridiculous. "I don't intend to use your methods, Suzuno. I asked for a macchiato and he brought it to me, nothing more-“  
"According to the game, you'll only end up being teased. Other students might follow his example," the half-brother noted, looking at him. "You have to be tougher with him. Be mean, if necessary. Talk to his parents in any case, this situation could have him expelled. Although I doubt it would really hurt him".  
"I think it's ironic how he is such a talented student," the man commented sadly, giving up and leaving the bathroom to take his file. "I'll have to go home, I'll be a little late."   
"Don't worry. Send an email to the father, the address is in the register."  
Hiroto made a brief gesture with his hand and almost smiled, before disappearing from behind the door. He did not even look at the student register: he did not intend to resolve the issue in such a way. But Fuusuke hated being contradicted: the truth was, most of the time, he was right.

Forty-five minutes of traffic after, Hiroto Kira was already in his apartment enjoying a lonely dinner, turning down a good happy hour with his closest colleagues for the umpteenth time. One of the disadvantages of living outside of Inazuma-cho was precisely that kind of occurrences, which in a sense should not have existed.  
Sighing, he drew from the folder the last tests he needed to correct: by monday, if kami had wanted, he would have delivered them to the class indicated in the upper left. Class in which the killer of many shirts was also found.  
He left his test as the last one, perhaps hoping to find some good in that damn thug. And in fact, he found himself as usual writing with the red pen the highest result of all: 84. He stared at that number so insistently that he thought it was cruelly ironic to have such a pupil in his science class.  
He finished pinning the latest corrections and, while he was slamming the stack of sheets on the desk to line them up, he was surprised to see a piece of paper slip out, crumpled and inevitably stained with coffee... and he knew only one woman so dependent on that drink, as she used to stain entire records.  
One the note there was a phone number and a name written in his unmistakable handwriting. A recommendation that resembled a threat, as if she had followed him in every movement. Typical of Hitomiko.

_Midorikawa Ryuuji.  
He’s Masaki Kariya’S father.  
08567778465_

_Call him or I will for you._

Hiroto sighed and gave up on the armchair for a few seconds, as he closed his eyes for a moment, taking off his glasses. He did not feel entirely comfortable being the head teacher, a position that he found very pleasing at first, but with time and experience he had learned to hate it.  
The phone started ringing like a warning. The teacher looked at it for a few disconsolate moments: everything he wanted -and his habitual laziness certainly did not help- was a good relaxing bath and finally a nice sleep. It was late by his standards, although the next day there would be no lessons. He answered only for gallantry...  
On the other side he heard some muffled words, covered by disco music. Hiroto recognized Nagumo's voice and began to worry slightly when he heard him crying against his ear.  
"Haruya, don't tell me."  
"I want to get married! Sorry dear for not telling you before! I was just..."  
Kira sighed when he heard that senseless speech that his half-brother offered him whenever he found himself in that kind of situation. "Were you just a little drunk?"   
"That's right, yes... wait, no!"  
"I'm coming to get you in five minutes... try not to hit your head like the other time."  
With a deep exasperated breath the man closed the call and found the time to wear the coat that was already outside the apartment… Hitomiko's ticket casually clenched in his fist.

He entered the club when Haruya had already passed out, rescued by a small crowd of boys and a few strippers. Resigned, he made his way to the group and gently separated a couple of drunken youths, asking them to move. Half-wasted, his brother looked at him in amazement, evidently not expecting to see him there. One of the waiters was helding his head in his arms and a few strands of greenish hair skimmed on Nagumo's crazy face.  
"Again, uhu?" commented Kira, disappointed but relieved at the same time, before sitting him down. He did not look at any of those present, as he was too busy making a lecture like a good older brother. He hoisted him on his shoulders without hesitation and in a moment he was already out of the room, muttering something about the stupidity of the youngest one.  
Once in the car he turned on the engine and gave him a look of reproach. "You don't have to go to that place."  
"What a boring thing you are," Haruya muttered, trying to keep his eyes open and slipping awkwardly in the passenger seat. "I have the right to have as much fun as I want."  
"Not in a gay club, and possibly without coming out full like a barrel!"   
Nagumo stood in silence. She passed a hand on the flame-shaped tuft that he had proudly kept all those years, and Kira almost expected his hand to slip over the other flames that sprung up like tulips all the length of his scarlet hair. Maybe long hair was a weakness Suzuno took... he would never find out.  
"Pray that I don't change my mind and don't tell Maki," he concluded by parking the car in front of his house. He wondered if it was appropriate to help him take the elevator in order to not retrieve him in the city's basement, but Haruya already looked quite stable on his legs.  
The brother turned to him and grimaced amusingly, then turned on his feets. "You should have fun, too, every now and then."  
Hiroto looked at him with disapproval, but blushing conspicuously. He looked down, not daring to clash with Haruya's.  
He was wasting his time... and he knew it.  
He squeezed Midorikawa Ryuuji's name into his fist and then left, not before he heard the door of Nagumo's apartment building close, a short distance away.


	3. three

It wasn't raining that day, but the clouds were already starting to build up above their heads. Kariya looked up at the lead sky and heartbrokenly sighed, barely murmuring an imprecation between himself and ignoring the deafening noise of students proceeding carelessly toward the building. He was simply alone.

He had forgotten the pleasant feeling of friendly arms squeezing around his shoulders, ready to overwhelm him already, laughters of old childhood friends and troublesome rumours and improbable jokes.

It had only been a month since he had walked through those gates, and Masaki had already resigned himself to three long years in complete and amorphous loneliness. Not that he was sorry, he simply hoped to find a few more friends. Sure, Kyosuke was a good guy, nothing to say. But some more weird guys in his class could make him comfortable too.

Lost in his ramblings, he almost stumbled on his own feet when he felt someone pushing from behind. That was in a tap from nothing, certainly unexpected, and unreasonable indeed. So Kariya clumsily turned on his feet, face on fire, ready to unleash his perennial and immature attitude on the unlucky one, but stopped with his mouth half-open and his fist in mid-air.

A kid. A tiny, mortified little boy looked at him from the bottom of his hundred and fifty-five centimeters, with the sweetest and most innocent look mother Nature had had the pleasure to create. A flutter of blue hair framed what seemed to him a doll's face, which clashed with his clumsy pace and his mildly curved shoulders.

The little one swung himself on the tips of his feet in an annoying and petulant way, even if it was without malice. Obviously, he was also a very nervous guy. "Excuse me, senpai!" he stammered, curling his upper lip and holding a few worn books -probably second-hand- tight to his chest. "I'm new and I don’t know the place very well," he said as a chick just came out of the egg. "Would you know where the 1st D is?"

Kariya stared at him with hidden interest. Actually, that funny little boy had something comical in him that certainly caught his eye. He would have gladly told him that he could do it by himself as he had done - the fact that Tsurugi had fished him in the broom closet where he hid certainly did not count-, but certainly it would not have been nice and honestly he pitied him.

"If you really wanna…" he snorted, acting mockingly displeased, and shrugged his shoulders. Then began to make his way through the crowd. The little boy followed him without a word, but as soon as they managed to surpass most of the students pressed at the entrance, the little boy showed up and hurried the step to trot cheerfully next to him. "I am Hikaru Kageyama!"

"I don't care"

"What's your name?"

" _You_ don't care"

"Are you a first-year like me?"

"You _don't have_ to care"

Kageyama curled his nose a little, but smiled candidly like he didn't really care. "I actually find you very interesting, senpai""

Kariya dramatically sighed, glaring at him. "Good for you," he said, passing his hand through his turquoise hair, which, like every morning, had forgotten to comb. He really didn't know what he was going to do with that funny kid, and he hoped they really wouldn't end up in the same class, no matter how unusual he might be.

"Oh, Kariya!"

Masaki looked up at the boy perched on the emergency stairs. A pungent cigarette smell impregnated his nostrils, causing him to sneeze. "Ohi."

"What do you have there?"

Beneath those piercing cat eyes, little Kageyama hid behind the shoulders of his new senpai, looking at him with indecipherable expression. His presence intimidated him, it was obvious, but for now Kariya didn’t pay much attention to it. "It's a new one. Is that door behind you open?"

"Like every morning," the other smiled as he stroked his bluish hair. "You owe me a favor."

"Just because you know the right guy, Tsurugi," he muttered, slightly irritated, proceeding toward the emergency exit. He barely heard Kyosuke's laugh behind him, and the dead weight of a certain little boy hanging on his arm.

It would have been a long day.

"So we are in the same class, neh senpai?" commented Hikaru cheerfully by his side, swinging the folder in his clumsy hands.

"How luckily," grunted the other, trying to sow him with his brisk pace. It was nerve-wrecking: in less than one morning he was already about to have a crisis. Impossible.

The sky was clear. It was a sunny day, and there were several clubs practicing their outdoor activities: from fencing to tennis, only the swimming club had decided to stay indoors. The cold was pungent, but quite fine on a winter day like that: the scent of spring still seemed quite far away, among those bare, wrinkled trees. However, though far away, the sun shone placidly and indifferently, a promise after so many days of bad weather.

"You know, I'd love to join the football club! I really liked it in middle school!" chirped Kageyama, swinging his bag and risking to dump its contents on the cobblestone. "We could go there, would you like to?"

"I can't," Masaki replied, watching the object in Hikaru's hands twirl and lash the icy air. "I have to go home early, my dad's waiting for me," he lied.

"Ah, so you have Dad? I only have Grandma."

Kariya looked at him in awe, muttering something on the line thatit was better not to want certain fortunes, but Kageyama acted like he hadn’t heard. "come with me, at least to the camp, it’s near the entrance! The team will definitely be training there!"

Masaki wondered how his new kohai could always remain so optimist. It seemed like things had no reason to go wrong... somehow, it was an attitude he kind of missed. "All right, all right... I'll drop you there and I'll leave" He pretended to be annoyed, but he couldn't hold back the smile.

Chatting about the most and least they arrived near the camp in no time. Hikaru stopped to stare at the first-team players passing the ball at a fast pace. "It's how I've always imagined them! I can’t believe it!"

Masaki simply put his hands behind his back and snorted, bored. "Uh, yes, very interesting. See you tomorrow!"

He missed Hikaru's greetings, but he could not prevent his gaze from falling on the ball: kicked by what was to be the captain, it reached for the goal... and took the crossbar.

In a normal situation he would have laughed, if it weren't for the fact that the trajectory of the shot had changed objective completely... to be precise, the ball was about to shatter the poor and fragile head of Kageyama.

Waking up in the school infirmary was definitely not one of the plans he had made for the afternoon. He sat on the uncomfortable cot cursing and massaging his sore head.

"Masaki senpai! Masaki senpai?”

He felt like he had just been catapulted into a nightmare. "Oh, good morning honey. What time is it? Would you make me a coffee?" he joked, massaging his temples, but he opened his eyes slowly and when he saw Hikaru’s worried expression he regretted it. He looked around, as if to make sure it was really the school infirmary: "How did I end up here?"

"You saved me from that ball, and you protected me with your body!" the boy promptly replied, like thrilled. Despite sitting on his chair, he hinted at a small bow. "I'm extremely grateful for what you did, senpai!"

Masaki sighed, embittered. He had been an imbecile.

"What a luck Professor Kira was nearby! Coach Endou was also very worried!"

Such a phrase did not foretell anything good.

"He said you'd be a great defender with that _pink net_ as a technique!"

He was. fucked.


	4. four

He had begun to glare at him almost insistently, to the point that he could not look away from him.

At the beginning it was an involuntary gesture, but soon it became obsessive. Because as much as he kept staring at him as if he could corrode him in the acid of his gaze, that pink hair of his tormented Masaki and troubled him deeply. Everything Kirino Ranmaru did, every gesture, every word, every touch with the captain, sent him out of his mind.

Even the innocent kisses on the cheek, those he exchanged with Shindou from time to time, made him feel a distant sense of disgust. _Childhood friends_ , they were called. Kariya couldn't believe it.

For this reason, that trip that had actually been an accident had proved to be extremely rewarding for him. He couldn’t have been happier to see those bruises at the chin of his senpai. He only realized it after helping him get up. He put on himself a fake smile at the corner of the mouth and made a deviously jovial, innocent expression.

Masaki now remembered well his mother’s laugh, so lovable, as she explained one of the simplest concepts she could teach him: "Be happy."

So accidents happened more and more frequently. Because he simply sensed that just humiliating or hurting Kirino Ranmaru made him more serene: it always has been, from small to big mischief.

"Sorry, I'm so clumsy!" he smiled for the umpteenth time that day, holding his hand. Kirino had fallen in a puddle this time: wet from head to toe, his uniform dirty with mud, he stared at him for a few seconds. Then he grit his teeth and simply said: “You do it on purpose."

It was the first reaction of that kind from the pink-haired boy. Masaki stared at him falsely bewildered, actually aware that from now on things wouldn't be so smooth.

And in fact, soon after Kirino Ranmaru's backpack was mysteriously filled with sticky jam, the boy was reclaimed by the principal’s office.

It wasn’t a very broad study and the furniture was very simple. The desk that was in the middle of the room was mostly covered with thickly written papers: behind the computer stood, instead, who was supposed to be the principal. Despite the red hair, Kariya did not recognize him immediately.

"Kira sensei!" he exclaimed at one point, surprised. The teacher looked up from the screen and arranged his glasses on his nose, smiling in his direction.

Kariya expected a completely formal atmosphere, he could figure himself standing near the door as a stranger stared at him with very serious and almost accusing eyes. He expected a few lectures, a notice for his parents, and many questions that would gradually dissolve into a cloud of smoke.

He had not expected Kira Hiroto to be there. Well, that being the case, things would have been a lot different.

"Sit down, Kariya-kun!"

Yes, everything would have been different. With a shudder, Masaki did what was required, then stiffened as the teacher closed his laptop and settled himself on the chair. "Do you want a coffee? I've got the machine right over there."

"No need," he whispered briefly clenching his teeth, nervously wandering his gaze from one end of the room to the other. The white walls were barely illuminated by the morning light coming in from the huge windows. That was the third floor, and there was a fairly acceptable view: the modest houses of the outskirts did not suggest that, beyond those hills in the distance, there was a busy and industrious city.

"Don't worry, Masaki-kun: see, I'm not worth anything in this office. Right now, both the principal and his assistant are busy, you know? But I want to have a serious talk with you. I guess you already know why you're here."

Masaki remembered those involuntary glances that they had occasionally been exchanged in the first weeks of his transfer. Even if the situation was strange, there always had been a sort of complicity between them. He had not only become incredibly good during science classes, but sometimes he even found himself lost in listening to him, only yearning to take notes and follow the movements of that professor who had caught his attention from the beginning.

It was Professor Kira who encouraged him to join the football club. He always offered him some coffee after class. And although most of the time he had spilled it on his immaculate shirts he could not say that he had done it on purpose, at first it had been very casual...

Somehow, to make a long story short, he now felt that he had deeply disappointed him. It was likely that whatever they had built overtime, that relationship of trust that they had unknowingly created, would crumble before his eyes in the next five minutes.

Hiroto looked very calm. There was no wrinkle to betray his seemingly peaceful expression, which made him think there was something underneath. "Yeah, I think you know!" he continued, not receiving any answer. "I have been informed about some cases of misconduct on your part in the last few days. I know it wasn't easy for you to settle in this school from the beginning."

Kariya remained silent, observing his cerulean eyes behind the lenses.

"I'm sure you had no bad intentions. The episodes that have occurred are not serious, but I invite you to follow the rules of this school," the man continued, stretching three sheets of paper, thickly written. "Obviously I'm not just talking about the latest events, I actually think your behavior towards many teachers is generally unrespectful. Next time I'll be much more intransigent."

He had lost his smile. Now he seemed to study him from afar, deeply absorbed in his thoughts. "School is not just about the grades, Kariya," he concluded, relazing on the chair.

Masaki felt his face become red for shame and wounded pride. Why did the world have to be so damn _blind_?

"Is there anything you want to tell me? "

He felt the blood boil in his veins. He clenched his fists, raising his chin in a motion of deep and childish stubbornness. “ _He’s gay_ ”, he said, with such anger and disdain that the teacher shuddered, rising from the chair right in front of the boy.

Not a word. There was no need for it at all.

Kariya rose slowly from his chair too. He walked with measured steps through the room to the door, and closed it behind him with a dull thud.

Kira trembled, still looking at his icy gaze.

He couldn't get those amber irises out of his head.

From the kitchen, Ryuuji heard the door slamming violently.

He leaned forward just in time to follow him with his eyes and see him disappear into his room, all grumpy and heavy steps. A key turn, and the boy had locked himself already in his bubble of misunderstandings: there was a very little hope of seeing him leave that room before dawn.

Midorikawa felt something strange in the air. He was sure there was something different in his attitude, as he heard the rustle of his clothes scattered on the floor and, perhaps, some other object thrown in fury.

He approached the door, biting his lip. He then reached out his hand, his knuckles facing the wooden surface, uncertain. Small shots, maybe too hasty.

"All right?" he said, holding his breath. "Did something happen?"

No response from Kariya, no comment. Silence swooped in the apartment, as it had been for weeks. Ryuuji was used to it, but it made him suffer.

"I'll leave you dinner in front of the door. Please eat it all..." he barely muttered, hoping in vain for a reply.

It was then, in that exact moment of stillness in the storm, that Ryuuji's cell phone rang.


	5. five

It was snowing, again.  
The teacher looked sadly outside the tarnished windows, tapping the pen on the desk shelf. A glass of disgusting coffee melted lazily in front of his tired eyes, partly blurring his already useless glasses.   
Rain have been falling on that part of the capital all evening, and a leaden sky have hovered for several days over the Inazuma-Cho district.   
He had been in that office for at least half an hour, and even if he had been informed of the delay from the calm, velvety voice on the other side of his cell phone, he was starting to get a little impatient.  
From his voice he didn't seem like a bad person. He even thought he was a extremely kind person. He still didn't quite understand who he was dealing with, actually he wasn't even sure if the one who answered was Midorikawa Ryuuji himself or his wife... Of course, the calls always altered the sounds of the voices. It was well known. He certainly didn't think it was a feminine voice, yet he was extremely delicate... yeah, he didn't really know what to expect. And he was pretty curious, too.  
But the school was beginning to become frighteningly deserted, as the last sounds of footsteps hurried to the offices. Reina's blue hair peeked out from the sliding door. "Hiroto! Are you still here? Can I leave you the keys of the school?"  
He respectfully smiled at her, nodding kindly. "Sure! I’ll wait a little longer. Then I'm going home."  
They greeted each other carelessly, before both resuming their way: she went home, as he wandered in his own thoughts. As always, like every time. Since they broke off their relationship, that time seemed increasingly distant and less concrete to Hiroto.  
He knew he had lost her.  
He shook his head almost automatically: he didn't have to think about such things. They were colleagues and had a formal relationship, but still friendly. His loneliness should not have affected such thoughts, or he would no longer be able to control his feelings...  
He still stared at the snowflakes that heavily fell before his cerulean eyes. He took off his glasses to massage his forehead, caught by a slight migraine. In time like these, he wasn't sure that caffeine was good for him.  
He did not immediately notice the sound of the door opening again, not even the candid and interrogative voice that announced politely itself. Hiroto was aware of Midorikawa Ryuuji only by raising his eyes: and was totally electrocuted.  
It looked ambiguous, but not androgynous. He wore his long hair gathered a little hastily at the nape of his neck by a sizable brightly colored pin; the brunette and tanned skin made him look naturally young, so much so that he doubted that he was actually the age he could have... How many? Kariya was not more than fifteen years old... Forty years, at least! It wasn't possible. It was absolutely not possible.   
He showed up immediately, embarrassed perhaps by the delay and his conditions: it was obvious that he had just returned from work, probably still in uniform, judging by the formal white jacket in complete contrast to his skin. Below there was a clean high-necked lilac sweater. Kira couldn't believe it at all. He had never encountered someone more enigmatic.  
"Everything ok?" Midorikawa coughed awkwardly, the tension palpable. His voice was barely hoarse, not high-pitched and almost melodious... And... And he had been staring at him for five good minutes without saying anything! He mentally called himself an idiot.  
"Of course, of course, excuse me!" he stammered like a little boy. He rose to his feet in an inconcepible awkward manner. "You must be... Kariya's father!"   
"That's what I said, yes," he smiled softly, almost sympathetically. "It must have been a hard day! You look overwhelmed, Mr. Kira!"  
Hiroto felt a strange, reassuring warmth at chest height. He was infatuated. "Don't worry!" he smiled, bowing slightly. "Excuse me, it must have been rude from me!"  
"If anything, forgive me!" he continued to smile. He sat on the chair in front of him, clasping his long, denim-clad legs. "Unfortunately I work quite far from here!"  
There was no shadow of a doubt, that man inspired him confidence and understanding. One thing that was generally more unique than rare in parents those days: you could never communicate with them, especially if the ideas of education between them collided. In a few years of experience, he understood that a parent should not be contradicted, but indulged.  
With Midorikawa Ryuuji this would not have been necessary. It was a real relief. Even he was astonished that such an angel could raise such a troubled child.  
In fact, when he hinted at the thing - "Don't worry, Mr. Midorikawa, your son has really good grades, he is a real genius indeed, but..." - he saw a wrinkle of concern on the man's forehead. When he then told him about the conversation he had with Kariya, a sigh (perhaps of resignation?) came out of his soft lips and he saw him barely shook his head. "I was hoping that this problem was only about me. But it's true, then. Seems like my son is really homophobic."  
Kira remained silent, carefully peering at his troubled expression. He had never dealt with such a situation: he was accustomed to overbearing parents ready to defend their spoiled children with swords. Looking him in the eyes, however, he realized that the issue was more complicated for sure.  
"Please let me know anything that can help us resolve this situation," he said with a dignified tone, softening it soon after. "Of course, if you don't mind."  
Midorikawa put on a pulled smile, less sweet and serene than it had been before. "It's going to be a pretty long story, I'm sorry."  
Hiroto looked out of the window, staring intently at the snow that kept falling impressively. He had never seen so much snow in his life: it was as if winter wouldn’t let them go out of there.  
He thought, despite the timetable, that staying in a dusty office sipping a glass of cheap coffee with the company of a total stranger wasn't all that bad. "Tell me about him."


	6. six

Kariya's memories became lost in a precise spot of his mind: there was always a kind of emptiness, a vacuumed space, where there should have been the image of his family before his parents separated. And that had been there, once: he had never intended to take this image with him to Ryuuji's apartment and had ended up leaving it in a corner of his old house, who knows where.  
He remembered a few things from that time: his mother's sweet voice telling him a bedtime fairy tale, the kiss his father gave him when he was afraid of the dark, and his lullabies; but also the screaming, the sound of broken shards, and the mom’s cries when Dad had revealed to her, in the room next to his, that he liked men.  
At the time he didn’t understand what it meant: he had only found it very strange. He remembered his mother's iron hand on his thin child arm dragging him down the stairs with the few toys he was allowed to take, and on the other side Ryuuji's narrow, sluggish grip that begged them to stay. He remembered that he had turned to him and stared at him for the last time, imprinting in his head that startled and weeping expression and that short, matted hair covering his madid face. And those black eyes: barred, swollen with tears.  
His mother had taken the subway, the suitcase swollen and overflowing and the shirt a little unbuttoned, the hair ruffled on his shoulders, and had let him sit on the only available place, as she stood in front of him. "Where are we going?" he asked her, when he saw her calm down a little, and she hadn't answered right away, she let her tiger eyes melt for a while instead, and then she said, "I don't know. Away from here."  
"Dad's not coming?"  
"Dad's gone."  
Kariya had laid his eyes on his still untied shoes that struggled to lay on the floor and had decided that he would not mention dad for a while. He didn't want his mother to suffer.

When he confessed to her the desire to join his school's football club at the age of ten, to him she never looked that happy. His mother had embraced him, kissing him on his hair and cheeks, and letting her tears fall on his school uniform. She was always crying. "My champion," he murmured, clutching him tightly. "My champion..."  
That afternoon they had gone shopping, she had asked for the day off just for him, and he had had a lot of fun: he could not stand the shopping malls and complained all the time, but his mother seemed only happier.  
They had come home loaded with useful and useless things: boots and water bottles, leg warmers, scarves and T-shirts of all kinds: his mother seemed to have spent a lot, taken by euphoria, but it did not matter. That evening they had sat next to each other over a steaming cup of tea and started fantasizing without realizing it, making plans, asking questions. "You're going to be a great striker!" his mother exclaimed, her eyes shining. "You're going to make your team so proud!"  
Kariya believed it, but soon began to realize that for certain things believing was not enough. He soon found himself on defense, more brought to block than attack, but even then his mother seemed overjoyed. "Don’t be silly, Kariya!" she looked at him in surprise when he complained of that unjust fate. "Don't you know that it's the defense that determines the true outcome of a match?"  
Kariya had barely looked at her and smiled, a little doubtful of her words to be honest. He wondered if she wasn't actually letting her down: his worst fear. But her expression seemed completely normal to him, there was no trace of what she had been a few years earlier.  
She continued to come to every match, always cheering for him, excited for every single ball he blocked, eager to see at some point a special technique like the ones of his older teammates. Kariya scolded her for those attitudes, embarrassed at every single scene that draw attention to him. "I like to see you play too much," she confessed, her eyes shining with new light. "You're my little champion."  
It was a time when he saw her smiling often. She no longer tore up the letters that were delivered to her, she did not break chairs in the delirium that struck her from time to time, if too taken by alcohol. Kariya felt happy for her: he was proud to bear her name, replaced only a few years earlier in a legal battle of which he had not been direct participant.  
But things were gone soon. Even the smiles, Kariya noticed, when during a friendly with a team -whose name he could hardly remember- his technique showed up to her grainy eyes and those of astonished spectators. That time he had looked up at his mother, there on the stands, and her eyes had filled with tears of anger.  
"I'm sorry," he once told her at home, lowering his head.  
"It doesn't matter," she had answered coldly, frostily smiling. "You'll find one even better."  
But for certain things, believing was not enough. Kariya could not find another technique, nor could avoid using the current one. And it was among the plots of a fluo pink net that Kariya Masaki saw his mother rise from the stands and leave forever.

He saw his father again after years of terror.   
He was sixteen when her mother went out one night in the euphoria of drunkenness, blurring disjointed phrases without a precise sense. "That faggot," he moaned often, laughing and crying. "That fucking faggot... I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him..."  
Kariya had heard the door slamming behind her, but she hadn’tnoticed: he was accustomed to the crises that have been going on for years, but had had never been too involved, and had learned over time to give himself a bit of autonomy. Even that evening he finished his homework and began to prepare a lean but satisfying dinner, recalling a particular moment when he had been discovered by his mother and had been beaten without reason. But she wouldn't come back until early in the morning, it was Friday night and it was late, so Kariya didn't bother to go to the stove and start cooking the first recipe that came to mind.  
Then, after eating, he began to put in place what his mother's fury had destroyed: overturned chairs, broken vases, glasses scattered around the house without him being able to prevent it. He had let his mother take possession of that house to the fury of breaking, overthrowing and smashing, and he could only pick up the shards and wait for her to come back.  
Yet... And yet he loved her. "It's Dad's fault," he had always thought, as a few frightened tears glided down his cheeks. "If it wasn't for Dad she'd be fine."  
And that was what he thought also that night, when he sat down on the couch and waited absently for his mother's return. He turned on the television, watched a movie, gave up and fell asleep tight in the fleece blanket and waited for the night to descend on Tokyo, cradling himself in the troubled and unhappy sleep he had been forced to...  
Only the sound of the doorbell tore him out of the clutches of his nightmares: Kariya awoke and sleeplessly brought his gaze to the clock hanging on the wall that marked three o'clock at night. He went to open the door still dazed, lost in a terrible and dark world: only the television emanated a beam of light and the only voice that filled the apartment was that of the journalist who announced the death of a couple of people in a terrible car accident.  
He opened the door: on the threshold his mother was not to be seen. Masaki blinked, looking confused and worried at the four figures climbing the stairs. When one of them looked up at him, Kariya felt his heart freezing in time.  
He let them in silently, without a word, still in his pajamas. None of them waved, only his father hinted at a sad smile and wanted to stay in the lobby, not daring to approach him. "Do you remember me, Kariya?"  
The boy nodded softly, looking at his young, tired face that he believed he had forgotten, and greenish hair left to grow along his shoulders. He only had one image of him in his mind until then.  
"Well," the adult muttered, cautiously, exchanging a glance with the other men. "Something bad happened in town. I need you to sit down."  
Kariya closed his eyes, feeling a dip in his heart at those words. The journalist, from the living room, pronounced his mother's name.


	7. seven

Hikaru noticed how his senpai's back stiffened while they were leaving the school. He studied him for a while, as his forehead wrinkled and his eyes became thinner: "Something wrong?" he asked him softly, almost whispering.  
Kariya did not reply and kept walking, silent. Then Hikaru saw Midorikawa Ryuuji for the first time.  
He looked like he was waiting for Kariya, leaning on a funny, tiny Smart, so much that he wondered how a man of that stature could get into something so small: he had long, slender legs, and in general his body seemed rather flexible for an adult. The green hair was collected at the nape of his neck, leaving uncovered a gorgeous pendant, purple as the shade in his large and black eyes.   
Hikaru liked him very much, right away. When the man turned to them and smiled, he knew that he really wanted to know him: the senpai had never told him about an older brother. Yet Masaki flatly pretended to not recognize him and surpassed him, cluded under the weight of the folder he persisted in carrying on his shoulders.   
"Kariya kun, wait!" the man complained in his direction, but the call did not have the slightest effect and the boy continued to walk to the tram station.  
Hikaru did not understand his behaviour. In general, his senpai always had that very strange attitude. He smiled at the adult as if to apologise for that lack of education, and when Ryuuji reciprocated he immediately felt at ease.  
"You're a friend of Kariya's, right? He never told me about you. I'm glad he made friends!"  
"That's not quite the case!" he replied, embarrassed. "It's my senpai, I’m just behind his back!"  
Midorikawa genuinely smiled. Everything in him showed delicacy and courtesy. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I am Kariya's dad."  
He tried to disguise the astonishment at first, but it really was impossible. He squinted and stared at him in amazement: "N-no way!" he exclaimed, his face all red. "I thought--- I apologize, Mr. Father of Kariya!" And saluted him with a too-accentuated bow. He looked up only when he felt the young man's hand caressing his hair. It was a gesture that reminded him an ancient and forgotten scent, holed up in some corner of his mind. He was at home.   
"Keep an eye on him, all right?" he chuckled, perhaps more embarrassed than he was. There was a note of melancholy in his voice. He felt like he was asking him to do something that only he would be able to do.   
He felt a kohai designated directly by a divine force. And just thinking about it, he felt powerful.  
After saying goodbye, the man went back to his Smart, his legs bending a little too much. Hikaru had not yet recovered from it.

"He looks like such a good guy!" he chirped from the driver's seat. The boy was melting in the next seat for the embarrassment and did not reply immediately. "Why didn't you ever tell me about him? You could invite him for dinner sometime, you know I wouldn't have any problems and I like to cook."  
Kariya, in response, grunted something barely comprehensible, immersed in the blue scarf that her mother had given him just a few years earlier, for his birthday.   
"Sorry? I didn't hear..."  
"I didn't want him to know you."  
Ryuuji's smile faded with those words, even if it didn't die completely. "Oh," he said, plunging into the ring road. As usual silence ensued, accompanied by the background noise of the radio. And Kariya would have been fine with it, if only at some point (they were halfway through and about to stumble upon the usual traffic) the man turned and glanced at him. "Kariya?"  
"Mh?"  
"I think we should talk."  
Kariya stiffened on the seat, sinking into discomfort and plunging his face even further into the scarf. Fuck, that wasn't the right time. He couldn't run anywhere, not even in the street. He imposed himself not to listen and to remain silent.  
"You know, I was summoned by your professor last night. He informed me of your behavior and..."  
"If you think I'm going to listen to your fucking lecture, keep it!" snapped Kariya to those words, unable to contain himself: he had already untied his belt.  
"I don't want to lecture you, just..."  
Masaki grabbed the door handle, ready to pull it. "Another word and I'll throw myself out! I throw myself, okay?" he shouted out of himself, and this was enough to baffle the man, who clasped his lips and continued to look straight ahead. He said nothing for the next few minutes, to which the boy calmed down and got back on the seat without a word. The boy spent a nerve-wracking time in absolute silence, before taking his headphones and iPod out of his backpack, and turned his head to the other side, isolating himself from the world.   
They exited the ring road and plunged into one of the back streets, heading for their neighborhood. That was the moment Masaki turned around, almost distractedly, and was caught off guard when he saw tears slid down his father's cheeks, who knows for how long. He took off his headphones, thinning his eyes, unable to avoid feeling even a little mortified. The image of his father of many, too many years before, resurfaced in his mind, on those stairs... Masaki suddenly remembered how he had tried to restrain him with the little force that had remained with him, weakened by a pain that at that moment he had not understood and had never tried to understand...  
It broke his heart. And it was as if Ryuuji wasn’t really aware of the tiny sounds that had filled the car with those tears: as he noticed that Masaki was looking at him, he barely looked away from the street, nervously covering his face with one hand. He shed tears that didn't really want to stop coming down profusely, trying to hold back the sobs with the only result of accentuating them. "Oh... Oh, gods," he stammered in embarrassment. "P-please don't look at me like that... Can... Can you pass me a pack of tissues? It's in the dashboard..."  
Kariya did what he was asked to. Ryuuji barely recomposed himself as he wiped his face. His eyes were swollen and shiny; after a couple of minutes he was able to calm down and stopped crying, he did not stop sobbing though. He parked badly, but he couldn't try again a better position than that. With a snap that made Kariya gasp, he got out of the car quickly and waited as soon as he got out too to lock the car. He walked away at a rapid pace to the stairs of the apartment building, with all the intentions of leaving him behind. And Kariya stood back.

"Do you smoke?"   
Ryuuji answered his surprise just with a nod of his head, fiddling the pack he had taken off from a kitchen drawer. He had been rummaging for too long in search of the lighter, then remembered that he had left it in his working jeans. "Sometimes," he replied, the little tube of paper and tobacco already between his lips.  
"I didn't know..."  
The adult shrugged, then he walked to the verandah without even looking at him. "Put the dishes in the sink when you're done, I’m washing them." And then he closed the glass door behind him. Kariya watched him leaning against the railing of the terrace and look down for an indefinite time, his shoulders stiff and all the weight dropped on his arms.  
He didn't touch any food.


	8. eight

There was nothing that irritated him more than Kirino Ranmaru's smile. The problem was that he could not avoid it so easily, especially if the activities of the football club forced him in front of him practically every single moment.  
He knew he was being watched. He knew that the coach's inquisitor gaze watched him everywhere and at any time. He knew that if he dared to make something bad he would be led back to the principal's office, and he was not sure that his teacher would still be there to save him temporarily from expulsion.  
He looked away, just in time to focus on his training partner. "Hikaru, you have to keep your eyes on the ball!" he scolded him at yet another mistake. Even if he was the grandson of one of the best-known (and corrupt) football presidents, he did pretty badly.   
"I get it, senpai!" Kageyama replied, reaching out to him after embarking on a heroic errand in search of the ball. "It's very difficult for me though, how am I supposed to see where I'm going?"  
"Do what I tell you and the rest will come by itself," the boy cut short, sitting on the floor.   
He had made a habit of personally coaching his teammate, and that was the primal reason for which he had joined the football club silently.   
"Isn't it better if we go with the others?" the protégé asked, scared and worried, as he saw the rest of the team on the other side of the field. "You're missing a lot of workouts, senpai."  
Kariya lay on the grass and snorted, shrivelled. "I don't need workouts. I'll finish with you and then I’ll leave: the coach is ok with it."  
Hikaru sat next to him, thoughtful. "Are you serious? Are you doing it just for me?"  
Masaki looked sideways, being blinded in part by the sun behind him, that made his bruised face full of expectation and amazement even brighter. "Yes, duckling. I have to coach you properly, or they're all going to kick your ass."  
"You say?" Hikaru burst into a crystal clear laugh. "Thank you, then."  
Kariya smiled bleedly. "You seem in a good mood."  
The little boy blushed, fearful. He bit his lip and said, "You don’t."  
Masaki's face shrugged off a little to those words, and Hikaru stood up at the exact moment he did so, too fearful and embarrassed. "I’m sorry senpai, it’s just that you don't look like yourself these days! I'm worried," he explained, sincerely, trying to sustain his irritated gaze as much as he could. He was not very skilled at certain things, and for this reason he soon found himself staring at his shoes, muttering something.  
"There's nothing you should worry about," Masaki growled. Then, as soon as he realized he had frightened the boy, his voice softened. "I’m being honest, Hikaru."  
As Kageyama saw that his mood had changed, he returned to look at him, still a bit worried. "When it's all over, will you tell me?"  
Kariya nodded distractedly. "Come on, let's run a few laps."  
Hikaru smiled and followed him.

Hikaru never liked Kyosuke, and he didn't do anything to hide it. And Kariya, of course, had noticed: at his mere sight, the kohai began to tremble uncontrollably and it looked like he wanted to tighten his shoulders in the inhumane effort to become even smaller than he already was.  
"He's a good guy." He reassured him for the umpteenth time, frowning at him. "I don't understand what’s your problem with him."  
Kageyama began to hide behind his shoulders as the boy approached, taking distance. "I just don't like him, there must be no reason."  
The boy looked up to the sky, sighing. "All right, I get it. At least let us take you to the station."  
"Could Kyousuke wait here?" Hikaru tried to suggest, but Tsurugi had already approached them and that was enough to shut him down completely.  
He greeted Kariya as if they had known each other forever. "Aye, how's it going?"  
"Great," Masaki replied, and Hikaru saw the sudden change of attitude: a flailing, ridiculous smile appeared on his face. "Let's go."  
"Does the brat come with us too?" the newcomer asked, peering at Hikaru from head to toe and enjoying his intimidating expression.  
"Let’s take him to the station, then we can go wherever you want."  
At that point Kageyama took courage and distanced himself from Senpai's shoulder, looking at Kyosuke in the eyes. "There’s no need for it, I’ll be fine even without you."  
"Hikaru," Kariya warned him. "I can’t let you go alone."  
"It’s fine!"  
Kariya snorted and promptly retorted: "You weren’t doing so well when you were surrounded by that gang, the other day."   
Hikaru blushed at the thought. He was annoyed not only by those words, but also by Kyosuke's amused gaze. It was too much for him: he writhed from the grip and walked towards the exit, clutching the sports bag to his chest; but when he turned to Kariya and saw his dismayed expression, he felt a vague sense of remorse. "See you tomorrow..." he timidly reassured him, and ran to the school gates.

"So, are you doing it or not?"  
Masaki stared at the cigarette for long moments before bringing it to his lips. He looked up at Tsurugi and, pale, tried to support it with two fingers in a desperate attempt to grab the lighter he was lending him. Thinking about it, it had to be a rather pathetic scene seen from the outside; but Tsurugi made no comment.   
Some rather embarrassing moments passed, as he tried clumsy to light some kind of flame: he probably would have achieved a better result with the sun's rays and a magnifying glass. More or less.  
"It's hard," he angrily muttered, and Kyosuke burst into a giggle, activating the lighter with ease. He did not receive any kind of thanks for the gesture.  
As soon as he managed to bring the cigarette to his lips he threw him another glance and inhaled gently: but as soon as the acrid taste of tobacco invaded his mouth he was forced to cough noisily.   
"I was right then," Kyosuke sneered, and before he had time to recover, he got his cigarette from his hands. "You can’t do it."  
"Let me... Let me at least try!" Masaki protested, but his first cigarette had already changed owner.  
"You tried just now. Class dismissed."  
Kariya leaned against the wall of the alley with a upset expression, crossing his arms to his chest. Kyosuke pretended not to see him and put filters and lighters in his pocket. "Listen, I know you'd love it but smoking isn't good. I agreed to let you try, not ruin your life."  
"You're a piece of shit. Why do you smoke then?"  
"Just for chill," Tsurugi replied indifferently, and walked toward the exit. "Good evening."  
Kariya glared at him, furious. Kyosuke was walking out on him and it made him bitter, if only because he had no idea how to get home from there. "You dragged me here!" he protested, reaching out, "At least tell me how to get to the station!"  
It was at that moment that Tsurugi did something unexpected: he began to run to leave him behind. Masaki was already about to find some colorful words to tell him when, just when they arrived down the main street, the boy turned at him: "Don't follow me. Walk this road to the butcher's shop, then turn right. You'll be home in an hour."  
Kariya stood in the middle of the street, irritated, watching him disappear among the rows of terraced houses of the infamous neighborhood. He looked up to the sky and saw it was going to rain.  
He cursed.


	9. nine

"Did my father ask you to accompany me?"  
Hiroto kept his eyes on the road. He barely frowned, perplexed by that question: "No, why should he? I just thought it would be better to give you a ride since you missed the last tram ride”.  
Kariya lowered his eyes, mortified, and sank into the seat. The car, a flaming red convertible, was way too expensive to be his. "The thing is, I came back late last night..."  
"He's going to be worried," the adult remarked, giving him a careful look.  
Kariya at first did not know what to answer. In the back of his mind flowed casual images of him barricading in his room, the darkness outside the gray terrace, Ryuuji's distant voice beyond the door. "Yes" he murmured at last, uneasy. "Yes, a little."  
"Oh, I get it. We'd better warn him then."  
Kariya looked up at the man, then lazily reached for his cell phone wrapped in a new folder. He didn't have his father's number. "Um, I think it's dead," he lied.  
"It doesn't matter. You should find his number inside my agenda: can you lean down to the back seats?"  
The boy stared at him for a long time, not knowing what to think.  
"You know, there were PTA meetings today! He probably should have come and picked you up."  
"Today he's in shift at the club where he works, I think. I should have walked home," Kariya said, after untying his seatbelt. He leaned toward the back seats and grabbed the agenda that stood crumpled near the folder. The car was partly stuck in city traffic, so it wasn't going at a high speed.  
"Uh... I thought he was a shop assistant, he'd come to the interview still in uniform..."  
"He has two jobs, Kira-sama," the boy explained politely, but he didn't want to add anything else: he himself didn't know much about it, and he didn't want to talk too much about his guardian.  
"I get it," the teacher smiled at him, and Kariya hoped he wouldn’t ask anything more on his father's account. Instead, they chatted about this and that, with the simple intention of passing time. "You know, we shouldn't be very far. Where do you live exactly?"  
"Nishigahara, District 3," the boy replied, and looked at the crumpled note that in his hands. Midorikawa Ryuuji. He’s Masaki Kariya’s father. "How did you get it?"  
"Uh well..." muttered the professor, suddenly uncomfortable, before looking around at an intersection to check that there were no other cars. "What a coincidence, I also live there."  
Masaki too was willing to take the conversation elsewhere and passed the note to the man, who embarrassedly smiled at him.

"It was really nice from you to give Kariya a ride."  
The parking lot of the apartment building was crowded and it had been impossible for him to park: so he had stopped in a place certainly uncongenial, but at least he would have been able to get out more easily. He was hesitant: should he get out or stay in the car? The fact that he had accompanied a student home without authorization was meant to be a cause for self-pity for him... If that was also the excuse of seeing his father, then...  
"No problem!" he smiled in his direction, peeking at Masaki as he disappeared behind the door: he hadn’t even said bye to him.  
"I apologize for his rudeness," Ryuuji bowed as soon as he noticed his gaze: he seemed really mortified indeed, not only for his son's behavior but also for the situation in general, which evidently embarrassed him.  
Hiroto made a vague gesture with his hand, keeping his smile on. Midorikawa was wearing a sweater very similar to the one he had seen him wear at the meeting, but that time it was red, and the hair was collected on his head as usual. He looked a little tired, he had probably just finished to work: suggesting it, he had placed his slightly crumpled white jacket on his right arm.  
"You know, I had to come back now from the shift at the shop: I did a bit of overtime," he said shortly after, making another little bow. "Usually my son takes the tram... But I didn't think it could be so late."  
"Don't worry, he probably has been with some friends. Students often entertain themselves inside the school even after the club's activities." he tried to reassure him, although in fact the words Kariya had addressed him in the car a few minutes earlier did not convince him at all. In addition, the activities of the football club ended fair early.  
"I'm sorry you had to go all this way..." the man murmured. "I'd offer you something to drink, but I have to go out and the house is a mess, so..."  
His courtesy held up to those words. "I found out that we live pretty close: I’m from Sugamo district," he said. Kariya was right, the man would have let his son at home alone.  
"What a coincidence!" remarked Ryuuji, and smiled nervously.  
Hiroto could not help noticing his tense attitude. "A real fortune, yes," he muttered, noting that another car had entered the parking lot. "I was thinking, in fact, that I would like to arrange another informal meeting. I'd like you to tell me more about Kariya: maybe I could help."  
Midorikawa looked up at his neighbour and waved at him. He then payed more attention to the teacher before he turned on the engine. "I thought you were just a science teacher: you truly are full of surprises," he replied cheerfully, and the man smiled at him.  
He followed him with his eyes even after he had left the parking lot, and watched him as he entered the building with his neighbor, but they did not exchange a word. He couldn't get his mind off the thought that the situation had something really unusual.

As soon as he heard the door opening he turned his head in his direction but lowered it immediately on the stove.  
"Are you cooking?" Ryuuji exclaimed, standing at the door with dismay. Kariya shrugged his shoulders, checking with a fleeting glance that the canned ramen had thawed a little. "I'm just boiling the water."  
Ryuuji leaned his uniform on a chair and smiled at him, coming close. He took the second pack of frozen ramen and put it back in the freezer. "I'm sorry, I don't have much time to eat: thank you anyway for the thought. I'm sorry, I couldn't come back sooner..."  
"No problem," the boy muttered absently, realizing that it was actually unusual for them to have such a conversation. "I'm used to it."  
His father's face blanked, and silence fell in the room. Kariya heard him approaching him but didn’t move. "Masaki... Are you sure it’s okay? I can stay home if..."  
"Do what you want," he replied rudely, then another long moment of silence followed. His father sighed and shook his head as he reached for the bathroom. Kariya heard him opening the shower and throwing himself in, and it was like he didn't want to talk to him anymore for that night, so he went in his room to get dressed. The water boiled at that juncture: Kariya removed the saucepan from the fire and poured the ramen on the open cup. He took the chopsticks from a drawer next to the sink and made himself comfortable on the couch, turning on the television.  
"I'm going," his father warned him as he passed by. "Have a nice evening, invite some friends if you want."  
Masaki didn't even turn to look. "Mhmh."  
"Don't wait for me! See ya." Ryuuji wore the jacket, took his gym bag with him, put it on his shoulder and went out. The steps on the stairs were mixed with the voice of the reality show to which he had the bizarre idea of getting attached.  
He thought about how many times his mother had told him something like this. Don't wait for me.  
It always feltlike she would never ever come back to him.


	10. ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiroto goes to a gay club because his stepbrothers said so and make a huge discovery.

“How did you come in?” the man frowned, leaving his bag on the chair.

Not too far, with his feet on the table and a cigarette between his lips, his step-brother was smiling at him. “Dad gave me the keys: he was always worrying about you and he always wanted to send me over to check at you. You were dead to him” he chuckled.

“You haven’t done it once, though”. Hiroto sighed and looked in his fridge: he hadn’t gone at the grocery for ages but he was always too lazy to. “Come on. Spill the beans. _But don’t you dare to smoke inside_.”

“Well!” Nagumo exclaimed, removing his shoes from the table and lowering his cig, even if it was brand new. Hiroto rolled his eyes: there was nothing good about the situation. “I organized a fantastic night just for you!”

“I knew it.” He took from the fridge what remained of the take-away from the day before. “Again!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, I just want to take you out from here!” Nagumo claimed as he followed him in the living room. He almost blocked his passage to the sofa. “You need some fresh air!”

“I don’t believe so.” Hiroto replied, and he gave him an offended glare. He decided to simply ignore him, he sat on his armchair and switched the television on. “Oh, _come on._ ” Then he said, when his step-blocked the vision: even if he was the smallest between them, when it came to annoy someone… that was pretty easy for him, not gonna lie. “I don’t need it!”

“Hiroto, look at you.” Nagumo protested, while crossing his arms holding a grump. “Since you have broken with Reina, your life is miserable. That’s pretty pathetic. Don’t you agree?”

Hiroto switched off the television and frowned. “It’s pathetic _to you_.”

“You should get someone else... Someone who can cook, first of all.”

Hiroto hide the take-away from Nagumo, ashamed.

“Someone who can clean your goddam shirts.”

He blanked and looked at the collar, noticing a stain.

“ _Someone who can fuck that stupid brain out of you_.”

He felt his face flame up. “HARUYA!” he squawked in shame, then he stepped up and said: “Fine. I’ll come with you. Just for this night.”

The never-aging boy almost jumped and cried in exultance. “Great! Fuusuke is waiting for us.”

Hiroto wouldn’t have been able to say what color his face was. “Why didn’t saw him when I came in?”

Nagumo ignored that question and after bawling him for all the apartment he slammed him in his bedroom. “Get dressed, hurry!”

Hiroto glared apprehensively at all those night clubs facing that noisy, crowded road: he didn’t like to roam in that part of the district. To be honest, he didn’t even believe he was at merely twenty minutes from home. He looked at the front seats, relying on the relaxed and safe of Fuusuke and the chattering between Nagumo and Maki, who was sitting near him. “I mean, are you sure about the direction?”

“Oh, yes.” everyone chanted, as Suzuno entered on a reserved parking. It was just past nine and the club seemed almost empty, but the few people that could see from the window were pretty recognizable. “This is… this is a Gay Club, right?“ he realized astonished, and glared at Maki who was just laughing at him. “This must be a joke!”

“Oh no, absolutely!” Nagumo replied as he turned at him, and looked at him with a mortally serious gaze. “Y’know, we have observed you for some time and we wondered if… “

“If you aren’t gay.” Fuusuke finished for him: he hadn’t spoken for all the ride and his behavior was composed as always, but it was clear he was in it too.

“This is absurd.” Hiroto would have bursted in rage if only he was capable: he couldn’t believe his step-brothers could do something like this to him! He got off the car, outraged, and sighed: he couldn’t think to a way to escape from that situation.

“Hiroto, There’s nothing bad about being gay. Look at us.” Maki explained and put an hand on her chest. “I’m pansexual. This is why I can deal with Nagumo, if you wonder.” She then gestured to him like he wasn’t right there to speak for himself. “And also, Suzuno is asexual.”

Kira gazed to Fuusuke, who was bearing a very neutral expression. He felt like diying. “This is a joke, I know.”

Nagumo hit him on the back, and pushed him gently towards the entrance. “We’ve all been here! C’mon, you are free to flee if you don’t feel right with this.”

Hiroto wasn’t sure about that but he sadly moved on towards the club, pushed by three pairs of hand from those who considered his friends since not long ago.

The first impression wasn’t so bad though: of course, people in there were all younger than him, and it was more crowded as he thought initially as he couldn’t see anything past his nose. Also, he found that the lights were pretty blinding and the music too loud, but then they found a free seat in the open and sighed in relief.

“See? Nothing to worry about.” Haruya exclaimed, and made himself comfortable on the chair. The he began to sing along. “ _Sugar how you get so fly?_ ”

He was clearly pleased with himself.

Hiroto could hear the music coming from the stage too, and he thought that the singer had a strange voice... not in a bad way. Hiroto couldn’t see who they were because he was giving the shoulders to the stage. He gave a look around him and studying the clients of the club: there were some extravagant ones, but all he saw were just some youngsters having fun.

A huge roar erupted from inside the club, as the song ended.

Maki gave him a curious look: “She has a beautiful voice, don’t you agree? She is our Friday star! _The eighth Muse!”_

“The eighth Muse? I thought that there was a man singing...” Kira observed with surprise in his voice, but his attention was suddenly captured from Nagumo who was loudly claiming a Bloody Mary.

“Bleah.” Suzuno commented. He was standing still. “What do you want, Maki?”

The girl chuckled. “Give me a sangria. Hiroto too.”

Kira protested vainly: “I don’t drink.”

“ _Drivers_ don’t drink and tonight it’s Fuusuke’s turn. Say thanks to him!” Maki replied as she smiled in a mischievous way. Hiroto tried to stop Suzuno but he slipped away. He couldn’t do nothing more than sit back and wait for the night to pass quickly. “I’m pretty sure I’m not gay, thank you for your concern.”

Maki totally ignored him and gave Nagumo an eloquent look, as he was blowing his first cig: “Now that I think about it, we should introduce her to him! I’m sure she’s his type!”

Haruya started lighting up. “What a wonderful idea! We should give it a try, you Dyson!” he laughed, and he ruffled her hair. Hiroto couldn’t believe he was still calling her like that even after all those years. But they seemed to get along very well, even if they both were too exuberant and impulsive... and narcissistic.

The singer was making a pause: there was some jazz in the background now and the night took a quieter rhythm.

“Look who is there!” Fuusuke’s monotone broke in from behind his shoulders. Hiroto didn’t turn because he had decided to spend those moments in absolute passivity. But then a familiar voice followed his stepbrother’s words. “It’s been ages!”

He turned slowly and his eyes widened in shock.

“Oh, what a timing! Hiroto, she is nothing else than _the eighth Muse_!”

The newcomer circled the table. He was wearing am unusual piece of leather which highlighted the curves of his long legs, as a white shirt slightly opened on his bare chest made him show up his bronze skin.

“This is Hiroto, our brother.”

Fuusuke sat calmly on his chair and the star took place on the armrestwrapping an arm around his neck like it was nothing: his behavior was casual and uninterested, even mischievous. “You never mentioned him to me before today!” He smiled in a charming way as he crossed his legs. He gave him an intense look with his black eyes of his, like they have never met before.

“We separated during university and it’s been some months since we reunited, isn’t it true Hiroto-kun?” Maki explained, and she looked very comfortable spilling their affairs like that

“That’s curious!” _Ryuuji_ laughed, and smiled directly at him. He had eyes for him only and Hiroto could feel his face go a little paler. “ _There are moments in which stars simply align, am I right?_ ”

He could swear his heart missed a beat right there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely people!  
> I decided that from now on I'll publish every chapter one by one. The first reason is because I feel this will be less chaotic. The second reason is because I would like to rely less on a translator while I translate my fanfiction so I will have a change of pace.   
> Let me know if you like it! And the "plot-twist" too? I'm not sure about it, lol.   
> Have a good day <3
> 
> Fay


	11. eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kariya makes some strange discoveries and Hiroto is a gay mess.
> 
> TW: MILD MENTION TO DRUGS, INSOMNIA, DEPRESSION and SUICIDE ATTEMPT, LIKE, IF IT DOES MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE YOU CAN JUMP THAT PART

“Does he take drugs?”  
Masaki looked intently at the small white box he had taken from a drawer. He sat at the kitchen table, ignoring all the mess around them. “These are not just drugs. These are... sleeping pills,” he mumbled, even surprised. “My mother used to take them a lot too. Like, a lot.”  
It had happened when he was just a child. He barely remembered his vain attempts to wake up that body, apparently lifeless. He remembered that he had cried a lot and no neighbors had cared. The thought made him shiver, like not a single day had passed since then.  
Kyosuke noticed his state of trance and ripped that package off his hands, reuniting it with the other white boxes of the same kind. Kariya couldn’t believe his dad could take something like that: was it insomnia? Could it be that he was depressed just like mom?  
“I have had enough: let’s go to his bedroom”  
Kariya blanked at those words, and gave Kyosuke a look. He hadn’t dared even once to sneak in his father’s room and couldn’t imagine that that night was the night. “Are you serious?”  
Kyosuke gave him a sly smile. “Are you scared?”  
“Of course not!” he answered promptly, but he really felt like chilling. He got up slowly, glaring at him. “You will help me to clean up, don’t you?”  
Kyosuke moved his hands in a vague gesture. “Yes, yes,” he said. “C’mon, where is it?”  
Masaki pointed at the door and Kyosuke moved rapidly, stepping over the counter like it was nothing. Kariya thought it would have been locked, like his father was hiding something from him- but the room was free to enter. He could have come in in every occasion.  
He run after Kyosuke, now the door was wide open. He hesitated before switching on the lights, as if Ryuuji could have been back in every moment, and it suddenly felt like in the room there was something mysterious and inaccessible... but when the light of the lamp lightened the space, it seemed to him that it was an absolutely ordinary room: leaned against the wall at his left there was a queen size bed, on the other side there was a vanity. The wardrobe was still open, and everything it contained was scattered on the floor and on the bed. He could have sworn that his father was a quite tidy man, but now he wasn’t so sure about it: the sheets were unmade and he could see on the vanity a lot of frames, documents and paperwork; even the balcony was full of clothes and books.  
“He knows how to treat himself: it’s bigger than yours” Tsurugi observed with a grin, and stepped in that place which was once forbidden, sat on the bed and hopped up and down to test comfort of the mattress. Kariya ignored him and moved towards a corner of the room, looking inquisitively at a sort of pole fixed both to the ceiling and to the floor. It wasn’t very thick and it looked like it was made of steel and it resembled those ones that firefighter had in every barracks for some strange reasons. “What do you think he does with this?”  
“This what?”  
“This one.”  
Tsurugi glanced at him and he too started to stare that odd object. “Don’t tell me, do you know what a night club even is?”  
Kariya glared at him. “I’m fifteen, obviously I have never seen one. What does it have to do with anything?”  
The other one shrugged, putting an enigmatic smile on his damned face. “Nothing. It looks like something a go-go dancer could use.”  
That answer hurt him. It was not like he hold his father in high regard (secretly, he did), but he couldn’t see him as a prostitute or something like that: he always thought he couldn’t keep up a conversation without transforming in an emotional mess, of course he couldn’t be a dancer in a night club... “He would never do that!” he said.  
“Isn’t he gay?” Kyosuke argued, and he couldn’t debate on that. The older one got up and came near the vanity, then took one of the frames and showed it to him as if he wanted to make a point. Kariya snarled at him, he was furious: that was enough. “Put it down,” he warned him, nervously. Tsurugi shrugged again, looking at the photo. “What does it matter, this room is a mess by itself. Hey... doesn’t he teach at our school?”  
Masaki came by, won by his curiosity but resolved to put that frame to her place and kick Kyosuke out of the room. But the picture in front of him completely astonished him and made him incapable to do really anything.  
The photo wasn’t recent, and neither of good quality: the colors were a bit faded and from that he supposed that at least ten years had passed, also because his father still had very short hair. By his surprise, there was someone near him- a very high, thin man, with uncombed hair and icy eyes. They both were smiling at the camera, shy and lighthearted, and they were holding hands; the trees behind them hinted that it had been a barren, autumnal day.  
“Fuusuke-sama...” he murmured. “How… how could it be?” 

“Fuu-chan, where are you going?” a voice exclaimed behind them. Hiroto flinched and turned his head, making eye contact with those gorgeous irises of Ryuuji. He still couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened and just looking at him gave him goose bumps: he wouldn’t ever be used to strange discovery.  
Suzuno had gotten up, holding a very drunk Nagumo in his arms, while Maki was near them, not exactly sober but still capable to stand. They decided that they would have driven them to home and the eighth Muse looked displeased.  
“What a pity!” she excalaimed, sitting on a chair and crossing his legs in an alluring way. “I have only a break left after midnight. I wished to spend it with you! Wouldn’t you like to stay?”  
Kira glared desperately at him, then at Fuusuke, but he looked like he didn’t care. His step-brother looked at Ryuuji in the eyes, unsure, still holding Nagumo who was totally wasted. “Ok, no problem. I’ll try to make it to the bathroom though, I think he’s going to puke.”  
“Me too!” Maki squeaked as her voice raised up in tone due to the alcohol. Hiroto tried to join them, because he definitely didn’t want to remain alone with the eighth Muse, but his words were covered by Nagumo’s slurred scream which encouraged him to “get on it” or something like that. The three of them walked away, melting with the pressing crowd, and Hiroto sank back in the cushions as he was left with the other man. If only they knew that they already met, and for completely different reasons. How could it be that Suzuno didn’t noticed his discomfort?  
“Fuusuke hasn't ever mentioned you!” Ryuuji chirped with too enthusiasm, and Kira gave him another look as he was furious and cringed. He hadn’t even drunk, but he felt really hot. “What are you even doing?” he hissed, because at that point he was totally shocked.  
Ryuuji smiled at him, in a confidential way. “It’s my job to assist my clients.”  
“Assist your clients, you say? You haven’t taken your eyes off me for the entire night. They are all laughing at me. It’s nauseous,” he protested, “so please hold it back!”  
Midorikawa sighed. He raised his glass of sangria, which was still full to be honest, and took it to his lips nonchalantly. “Who said that it was you I was looking at? Chill.”  
Hiroto couldn’t find something to respond at his sharp gaze and his mischievous grin: Ryuuji looked like a completely different person from the one he had known, and the realization made him shut up. He looked at him as he sipped away all his beliefs.  
Then Ryuuji put the empty glass on the table and seemed to recompose, as he gave him a serious glare. “I’ll answer to all your questions. But not here, I’m in service. Do you mind to meet, later on?”  
Hiroto observed him intently: it was the first time he saw him like that, and he knew immediately that he wasn’t fooling him. “Would you give me a ride?” he asked.


	12. twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiroto finds out more things about Midorikawa

Even after the last clients had left, there was still a coming and going in all the corners of the club. Hiroto had moved to a table nearby the heaters, just to slip from the embrace of the cold. It was 3:00 a.m. and the air was saturated with smog. From his position, he could see a lot of waiters who were ensuring that the last tables were all clean and tidy; the ones that had exhibited until a while ago were helping them, even if they looked exhausted. He too had tried to help even if he felt clumsy and out of place, carrying some of the glasses to the counter. There he stood a man with deathly pale skin and aquiline nose, he was cleaning too. It looked like everyone knew each other quite well and were getting along. Nobody minded his presence there.

Ryuuji came to him only when the club was all cleaned up, and invited him to follow everyone at the back. When he opened the door, he noticed that it was used as a sort of changing room. Beside Ryuuji, there were two other men, both dressed oddly and with long dyed hair left loosed on their shoulders. One of them, the bass, was called Afuro: he knew because Ryuuji mentioned him sometimes. They had sung and performed all the night and Midorikawa in particular looked really tired; his coworkers rushed to the showers and he sat to the only mirror to take off all the make up. At first, Hiroto stood near the door, then he sat too, on a wooden bench near the entrance.

“Hell!” the bass cursed, and Hiroto saw his platinum head peek from one of the showers. He was still partially dressed and was rustling for something behind his back. “The zip is stuck! Sakuma, would you give me an hand?”

“No” the other one declared, and as to remark it he opened the stream and the noise of water covered his next words. Midorikawa lighty shook his head, as he was focused on a difficult spot of colour and he also had his hands slippery for the oily remover. Hiroto stood up promptly and when Afuro noticed it he came towards him. “Oh thanks, you are my saviour!” he said, then he turned around and raised his hair in order to help him. “A lock got stuck, can you see it?”

Hiroto fumbled with the zipper with trembly hands, truly embarrassed. He had to admit that he had never saw a man with a corset.

“Blessed be!” the Muse exclaimed, now free to breath. “I can’t believe it, I must be getting fatter!”

Midorikawa laughed briefly, like he was mocking him. “If you hold your breath a little bit more you’ll fit in for sure”

Afuro gave him the middle, then turned to Hiroto. His eyes were of a very intense and deep red, maybe he was wearing contacts. “So, what about you? Aren’t you Ryuuji’s next conquest?~”

Hiroto blushed. “We… we are nothing like that!”

“We aren’t,” Midorikawa remarked, as he pestered his right eye with cotton. But Afuro wasn’t giving up so easily and gave him another sly look. It looked like he was going to say something more but the other one cut him off. “Go, have a shower, I don’t have all the night .”

“Mine is free, now” sighed someone from the dressing room. Midorikawa got up and took his bag with him. He glanced at Hiroto, almost shy, as Afuro was dragging him towards the cabins and laughing.

Hiroto was left alone for a while, then thin and gloomy guy appeared from one of the dressing rooms and gave him an intrigued look, then he went to the door. Hiroto noticed that when he had seen him for the first time he wore a pirate’s eye patch, now there was a common bandage topped by a pair of glasses. “See ya!”

The other ones saluted him as he left, but their words were covered by the pouring water.

The casual atmosphere completely vanished as they got in the car: suddenly, even if he was actually sleeping at that point, Hiroto remembered the very first reason he stayed and asked Midorikawa a ride home. But before he could think better about it, Midorikawa snorted loudly and that made him jump.

Without all those layers of make-up, it was like the man had regained the same personality he had known him beforehand: he looked incredibly stressed and on the verge of dozing off, but foremost, he was clearly uncomfortable. That was not the type of situation Hiroto himself would have enjoyed, so he could sympathize with him on that. He looked away, making space in that little car, saying nothing. He thought that even without that purple lipstick and those glitters at the side of his eyes Midorikawa was a really beautiful man.

“What are you doing here?” they asked at eachother at the same time, and Hiroto blushed. Ryuuji had a similar reaction, but kept his gaze on him, and when the silence became unbearable he started the engine. There was an odd noise at that, and the tension dropped.

“My brothers dragged me here”

“I know them very well, but they haven’t mentioned you once since I met them.”

“That’s because we recently gathered after a lot of time.”

Ryuuji nodded and with a smooth gesture got out of the park lot, then he took the desert road. A small group of people was still in front of the club, they probably were the waiters who met for a cigarette, and between them there was Afuro, too: he waved happily at them. Midorikawa repaid with a wave of the headlights.

“I’m a member of a crew and we do performances in this club almost every. Actually, there’s eight of us,” he explained. “We do covers and dance numbers. I’m a vocalist, Afuro is the bass and Sakuma is at the keyboard. We had to separate the band into two groups because we are really requested in the area.”

Hiroto quietly listened to what he had to say, gazing at him from time to time: he sounded calm and controlled. Hiroto thought that he held his liquor pretty well. But still, remembering that he had actually drank a shot of sangria, he just hoped no policeman would have stopped them. “How many years?”

“Thirteen years, I think. Oh my God.” Ryuuji’s eyes widened, as if he was considering the idea just there. “I’m getting old!”

Kira couldn’t help a smile. “You don’t act your age, even if I don’t know how old you are, really.”

Ryuuji gave him a little grin. He kept on his only earring, a purple gem with a precious golden edging: it wasn’t just a prop. “How many years do you think I have? I’m curious.”

Hiroto blushed: he didn’t want to sound rude, even if the conversation was taking a more casual turn. “I... Uhm... Kariya is fifteen, right? So... I think y-you are... around your fourties? Something like that?”

In that precise moment, he saw a flickering light in Midowikawa’s eyes and fell silent. He looked a this lips bending in a sly smile, sweet and melancholy at the same time. He hadn’t ever seen a smile like that. Hiroto was stunned, as he could feel his own heart speed up the heartbeat. He sensed a sort of shrinking at the height of his stomach.

“Thirty-four! I’m thirty-four years old”.

Thirty-four. Hiroto face changed colors. There wasn’t a lot of age difference between them, after all. For him to be a teacher with several degrees, he was quite young, too. But having a degree and having a child were two very different things, and having one so early in his life… He felt pretty uncomfortable at the thought and preferred to slide on that. Some pieces of that intricated puzzled found their place in his mind.

“Once you told me you had a divorce when Kariya was five...” he cautiously said. “You started this job before… or after that?”

Midorikawa’s smile faded, probably upset by the implication, but he answered anyway to that question and kept his eyes on the road. “I think you know that already”.

 _Oh my God_ , was Hiroto’s only thought. “Why?” he asked, eventually.

“Because I knew I was gay, and I liked it,” the other man replied, “but most of all, I was in need for money, desperately. Things haven’t changed since then.”


	13. thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Kariya has a panic attack because he remembers the abuse he has suffered as a child. Midorikawa helps him soothing it down.

He woke up when he heard the door closing and the dark embraced him with the terrifying plainness of death.   
His mother was home.   
He kept his ears open, his muscles tensed and petrified. He sat on the bed and, as he heard the noise of keys being laid on the chest in the atrium, he started to shiver. He would have to stay hidden at that point, but legs refused to obey him. He should have called someone, but he couldn’t move an inch of his body. “Mom?” a crying voice called, his own, and waited for an answer that never came.   
The first tears burst and flowed on his pale cheeks and his lips parted in a moan. “Mom, don’t hurt me, mom…”  
Behind the door, a light was lit. Kariya stopped breathing. When the apnea became unbearable he started sobbing uncontrollably, his body shaken by chills, eyes wide and fixed on the void in front of him. Resolved to not make a single sound, he curled up, squeezing his belly and his mouth, stopping every noise from escaping his lips. Fear had grabbed him by the legs and was crushing him like a vice.   
“Masaki-kun?” a stranger voice called, and a shadow covered the shaft of life that was lingering from behind the door. “Masaki, are you here?”  
The door jolted, like if someone was trying to open it from the outside. Another violent shake made him cry in fear. “Masaki… open the door…” The voice was high pitched and it trembled hard. “Masaki… I hear you crying… open the door!”  
Kariya slides back under the covers. He would have liked to scream at her to go, but she was his mother, she would have been mad at him… He reached the bottom of his bed and prayed for the time to pass quickly.  
“Masaki! You are… getting me worried…” His mother was going to cry. It happened whenever she was drunk.   
He wouldn’t have allowed any plea to shatter him. He wouldn’t have opened the door. “Go away,” he began whispering, “Go away,” A silent prayer, an exorcism, a singsong. “Go away, go away, go away…”  
He heard footsteps of someone running away and there was a moment of silence in which everything quieted down, and he allowed himself to sneak out his hideout, his guard high. Then a turn of keys made him realize that the door was being opened and he screamed, covering his face with his arms. His mother switched the lights on.   
“M-Masaki!” the voice of before exclaimed, and he realized he knew that sound already, even if it was still strange to hear. Kariya lowered his guard and noticed that the person on the doorway was his father. And that room… he was in there for a few weeks and it was different. Because he wasn’t home anymore. And nobody would have laid a hand on him.   
They looked at each other for some moments: Ryuuji kept his eyes fixed on him all the time, mouth agape for the shock, and he probably had a similar expression on his face too, but maybe it was different. Then, when the astonishment passed, Kariya came back to shiver and cry and his blatant efforts to suffocate all of it down his throat worsened everything. It happened every time and he couldn’t learn shit.   
His father stepped in his room. He was the same man that left a few hours before, he only had his hair down, a bit ruffled and wet with rain, but in the moment he seemed like a complete stranger to him. He retracted on instinct, but he didn’t leave his bed and allowed him to sit at his side.   
“Masaki…” his father called him, but he couldn’t answer. He was still between the panic’s jaws. He just stared at him and wept and trembled without being able to stop.   
“Masaki… don’t… don’t lock yourself inside ever again, please,” he murmured, still shaken. “Do you hear me?”  
He struggled to nod at him: it was like his body was paralyzed. Midorikawa lowered a hand on him and he couldn’t help but let him touch him: it was a gentle and soothing caress. With Midorikawa’s hand pressed on his cheek, Kariya started to inhale and exhale deeply, trying to regulate his breathe. “Yes, good,” his father encouraged him with a soft voice. “You are doing great”.   
Whole minutes passed. Ryuuji kept his hand on his cheek for the whole time, whispering comforting words to him: slowly, Masaki regained control over his body and his mind, and slowly… all that remained was weak sobs and the lingering awareness of what had just happened.   
“All right?” his father asked, “Do you want me to leave?”  
Masaki didn’t answer to that. He closed his eyes and relaxed his body against the pillow, whishing that moment to pass quickly. He couldn’t see his dad at all, but he felt his worried eyes on him. He would have liked to thank him in a way, but he didn’t know how.   
“I’m putting the kettle on. Do you want a tea, too?” the adult asked gently, his hands leaving him alone. Even if he felt empty at first, Masaki was grateful for that. He slowly shook his head and turned his back at him, feeling his own breathing.   
He didn’t fall asleep immediately, and his father didn’t get out of the room right away: he sat down with him for a while, maybe to make sure he was doing ok. Kariya found the gesture annoying and reassuring at the same time, but he wouldn’t have ever admitted that. Then the man left his room and after a while he dozed off without even noticing. 

He was woken by some noises coming from the kitchen, but he didn’t want to get up soon. He listened attentively to Ryuuji’s voice singing a silly Christmas’ jingle, and the light noise of cupboard’s doors being opened and closed. He could even hear the rumbling of the coffee maker left on the hotplates, and the one of the dish washer which was turned on.   
He left his room with his pajama still on, his face sleepy and serious. The table was prepared with the usual Saturday’s morning breakfast, an offence to whatever diet and to good grace. “Good morning,” he mumbled towards his father’s direction, as the man was bent down (and stuck?) to reach a cupboard at the lower half of the kitchen. It was like he was searching for something.   
“Good morning!” the adult chirped with excessive joy. “I’m looking for the waffle iron”.   
“Go ahead…” Kariya shrugged, and he got closer to the balcony door. “Is it snowing again?”  
“Do you believe that? What a winter… I haven’t ever seen so much snow and rain in my entire life!”  
Ok, they were already talking too much for their standards. Masaki decided to lock himself in his silence and sat on the chair, chewing some biscuits. I was weird, but he hadn’t seen his dad cooking them, he wasn’t even sure he had the time to. But it looked like they were handmade.   
Ryuuji surfaced from the chaos that it was his kitchen and smiled at him all toothy. “Did you sleep well?” he asked him, but it wasn’t a simple-minded question, Masaki could tell he was really interested at him.   
Kariya raised his shoulders, all defensive, and lowered his eyes on the plate. “Yes. Uhm, I guess. I… I don’t know,” he muttered. “I… you see… I don’t know what came over me. Well, I know it to be fair, but… I would like you to forget about it”.   
There were some moments of silence and Kariya wished there hadn’t been other questions.   
“I’m afraid I can’t do it,” the man confessed, and Masaki couldn’t help himself but to glare at him: he observed him as he laid the iron on the table, but he was paying his complete attention to him. Something he wasn’t used to feel. “You know… I can’t help but feel a bit responsible for what happened and… I would like to make you an offer, actually”.   
Kariya gathered all the courage he had left and looked at him in the eyes. For a moment, it all looked like a fairytale.   
“Do you have… any program, for tonight?”


	14. fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: mention to an abusive past relationship; mention to death; mourning; "unwanted" pregnancy (not really?)

His father sang beautifully, to the point that Kariya never spoke the whole trip: deep down, he would have liked to hum too, if he hadn’t felt so shy. It was the first time for him getting in the car with Ryuuji without knowing where they were going. He wondered if Ryuuji knew, at least.   
The adult was humming a pop tune, tapping his fingers on the wheel. Masaki just wanted to sink in his seat and look at the light rain that disrupted his vision over the window.   
“We will get there in two hours, we might find some traffic though,” Ryuuji had said to him while putting the sleeping bags in the small back of the car. “You’ll like it”.   
To be fair, Masaki had started to regret it already, and in a sense, he was afraid of something. After an hour, they left the city and drove south, and he began to glance nervously at his father: everything they had were two sleeping bags, a change of clothes, and three water bottles. Masaki hadn’t ever left Tokyo, not even once, and at that point he thought it was stupid to ask where they were going, but: “Will it take long?” he questioned at a certain pint, and the adult gave him a reassuring look. “No, not much. We could make some stops, if you are carsick.”  
“Uhm,” the boy replied, sinking in his seat a little more. That car was really small… he couldn’t feel a real sense of security staying in there, but he had to admit that his father had a careful driving. On time, they were making a sharp turn when a huge camion came at them from the oncoming lane, and he couldn’t help but flatten against the seat in pure fear.   
“I’d give a look out of the window if I were you: yours it’s the perfect side!”  
His father’s words relieved him a little: as he did what he was recommended, the big blue plate of the ocean showed up under the grey hood of the sky, and he got relaxed immediately. He wasn’t sure he was feeling better after what had happened the night before, and everything around him felt odd and foreigner. He had always fought that sentiment behind a veil of arrogance and stubbornness, but in that very moment, he only felt helpless under his father’s gaze. He thought he wasn’t safe.   
They drove through the panoramic route until the grey skyscrapers and the port disappeared behind the trees. It wasn’t a place he would have described as “isolated”, but it was completely different from the city he grew up in. Sometimes, he could see little towns surrounded by groves.   
“I’m from these places,” Ryuuji explained. “My parents kicked me out when I came out to them, then I moved to Tokyo”.   
Masaki turned his head and pretended he hadn’t heard that, but he could feel vividly a lump in his throat and felt uncomfortable. Ryuuji didn’t say anything else, and after two hours of driving he simply informed him they were arrived at Shizuoka district. Then he pulled over a lay-by and turned the engine off. “Here we are!”  
“It’s… in the middle of nowhere,” Masaki observed in astonishment, because he couldn’t really hold it back at that point.   
“Not really. I think it’s time to make a short stop, anyway,” Ryuuji explained, he smiled at him and stepped out the car. Kariya unfastened the belt and cautiously got out too. He could hear the lazy mumbling of the waves which shattered on the rocks, but it was not like he wanted to bath: it was freezing cold and the gloomy sky just threatened rain. His father took a blanket from the back and climbed over the guard rail.   
“Tell me, are you crazy?” the kid huffed, because he was really trying to be condescending, but he couldn’t. “Come and keep quiet,” he heard him answer, and he obeyed.   
A recent thunderstorm had scattered the rocks with dirt of all kinds, from the usual uprooted stumps to infamous plastic garbage. Even Ryuuji seemed not at all surprised by that, but it took him a while to find a good place on which he could lay the blanket. There was also a strong wind that messed up their hair and made them look ridiculous.   
“Come on!” the man encouraged him, still wrapped in his white coat. “I have some hot tea, we will not freeze to death, I promise you”.   
Masaki stayed silent for a while, then he came near and sat on the blanket. “What now?”  
“Nothing. Let’s look at the sea for a while. I… I want to tell you something. About me and your mother”.   
“What am awful plan,” he couldn’t help but observe, keeping some distance from him but still taking the hot Thermos from his hands.   
Midorikawa smiled at him nonetheless. “At least here you can’t escape”.  
The kid tensed up and shrugged his shoulders, feeling the cold. The stormy water expanded in front of them with a vibrancy he had never seen before. But the sky was still, hanging quietly over their heads, almost ready to fall down.  
His father started telling his story and Masaki realized he was waiting for this moment.   
“I met her at university. She wasn’t bad… just… She believed we were made for each other. And that night…” He stopped, like he was following a bitter thought. He hadn’t prepared a speech. He was speaking with his heart. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. Just for you to know… When she said she was pregnant, it blew me away. I was… so young! I knew nothing about the world, I was only nineteen! I had a part-time job as a salesman, but it wasn’t enough”.   
Masaki reflected about it. Was he a mistake, then? He had never thought that he was the result of something healthy, somehow… but Ryuuji confessing this was way worst than any of his hypothesis. He hold his knees to his chest and forced himself to not listen.   
“I dropped out and found another job, just to stay comfortable for a while. We found stability only after you were born. But I… wasn’t happy with her. I came out to her hoping she’d understand… You know how it ended”.   
He had ruined his parents’ lives. He had always thought that the disintegration of his family had been all Ryuuji’s fault. But had they ever been one? A family? For the first time, he considered the possibility that his mother had a part in all that. “She always blabbed about the fact that you had a lover. I guess…”  
“It’s true”.   
Those words shocked him. Kariya’s eyes widened and he gave his father a stunned look.   
“I never stopped cheating on her. I had a lover”.   
Masaki jumped up, outraged and mad as he had never felt before. “You…!” he began to say, but he couldn’t have known what to say, to be fair. Ryuuji didn’t stop him and didn’t look at him once. He was just staring quietly at the sea. It looked like he was lost in his thoughts, and for some reasons that made him desist from leaving.   
“Kariya,” his father whispered after a while, “I was a very different man back then. I was shy. And gentle. And insecure. And your mother took advantage of that. She wasn’t the only one. I don’t want to talk about it because it doesn’t feel fair towards you, and towards a dead one in general”.   
The sound of the waves was almost hypnotizing him. Kariya stared at him and this time he listened.   
“I was… really, really happy that you existed. I loved you, Masaki. I still do. But yesterday… I realized that I can’t ask you to understand that. Not after everything happened to you. I left you. Both of you. I can’t forgive myself even now”.   
Masaki sobbed quietly and his father lit a cigarette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely people! I have to thank you for still sticking with this fanfiction <3 I'm sorry for the mistakes. I'm tired. Lol.   
> See you soon!
> 
> Fay

**Author's Note:**

> I'm translating this fanfiction directly from Italian so I'm sorry if it's not perfect. Feel free to comment with anything <3
> 
> Fay


End file.
